013 Dr. Shankardev Saraswati – Mind and Body Connections

The mind and the body are connected. That may sound obvious, but until a few years ago, the medical profession didn't actually acknowledge how intimately that connection was. Dr. Shankardev Saraswati joins me to talk about connection, the inner child, psychotherapy and counseling and what this all means for stress.
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Dr. Ron Ehrlich:                   Hello, and welcome to Unstress. My name is Dr. Ron Ehrlich.

The mind and the body are connected. Okay, that may sound obvious, but until a few years ago, the medical profession didn't actually acknowledge how intimately that connection was. In fact, you could argue that the profession, and more importantly the public, people out there, are not aware about it as much as they should be. My guest today is Dr. Shankardev Saraswati. He's a medical practitioner whose practice is focused on psychotherapy. He's also a Swami, which is a master of yoga and meditation, and he also happens to be a very good friend.

We talked about mind-body medicine. We talked about the difference between counseling and psychotherapy. We also talked about the meaning and the power of meditation and yoga. Above all, we discussed connections, and it was certainly a pleasure to connect with him, and I hope you enjoy my conversation with Dr. Shankardev Saraswati.

Welcome to the show, Shankardev.

Dr. Shankardev Saraswati:              Hi, Ron. Good to be here. Thanks for guiding me. It's always good to see you.

Dr. Ron Ehrlich:                   Thank you. And it's always lovely to see you, too. Now, this is ... You're a general practitioner, and you've been a general practitioner for some time. It's like every practitioner, there's a journey.

Dr. Shankardev Saraswati:              40 years.

Dr. Ron Ehrlich:                   40 years. Well, sometimes 40 years, and that's quite a bit of time. So, there's been quite a journey, there. Can you share with us part of that journey?

Dr. Shankardev Saraswati:              Well, Ron you and I have known each other for a long time, and what I enjoy from our conversations is this kind of self-reflection time, and trying to understand, actually reflect back on who I am in order to sort of talk about this with your audience. And when you asked me to come on to this podcast, it really made me think about the journey I've been on. Of course, you can go back a long way. I'm not going to bore you with details on that.

Dr. Ron Ehrlich:                   We don't have to go back through the birthing process, but you know, they're all relevant. I'm not dismissing them.

Dr. Shankardev Saraswati:              Exactly. So, my journey's been kind of defined by both Western healing and philosophies, and Eastern healing and philosophies, of yoga and meditation. And my name, I'm Jewish by birth, but I've got this Swami name, so I sort of feel that I straddled these two worlds. I think the overarching theme of my life is this straddling of the Eastern and Western systems, and that's what I've tried to bring into my practice.

And I've never really been a classical GP. I've always been holistic, and even when I was in medical school when I first started to really get into yoga and meditation, the spiritual side of it, in particular, I've always had this kind of sense that there was a lot more to medicine than I was being taught. I remember a lot of my teachers, my cardiologist, one of the cardiologists teaching us in medical school die from a heart attack. I remember my orthopedic surgeon who's training me at the time told me that he had a backache, and there's nothing he could do about his backache, and he tells all his patients, "Look, you've got a backache or back problem, there's nothing you can do about it. You've just got to learn to live with it."

So, that kind of mechanistic approach to the world didn't suit. And of course, in the 70s when we were training, it was a very technically interesting time,